Does the HBO show have a thing against heroes? Writers D.B. Weiss and David Benioff untangle the macabre wonders of Westeros.

Charles Dance as Tywin Lannister, who has a pretty bad day on the Season 4 finale of Game of Thrones.

By:Mary McNamaraLos Angeles Times, Published on Mon Jun 16 2014

Warning —the following article contains major spoilers about the season finale to Game of Thrones.

Wrapping up its fourth season on Sunday, HBO’s Game of Thrones has not just avoided toppling under the weight of its own storylines; it’s become a bona fide cultural phenomenon, with an audience larger than even The Sopranos. Writers D.B. Weiss and David Benioff answer many questions about the season and its thrilling finale.

Who chose this season’s tag line, “All Men Must Die”? And was there a lot of “and we mean it literally” laughter in the meeting?

We suggested the tag line because the phrase has such resonance in the books (and, we hope, the series). Since we hopscotch between so many storylines in the show, it’s difficult to find a single sentence that’s relevant for all of the characters. “All Men Must Die” seemed appropriate for this bloody season.

Throughout the series, Tyrion has been one of the few truly noble characters, in that he has tried to protect those less fortunate and never killed anyone out of malice or even vengeance. Although I was certainly happy to see Tywin go, I felt bad that Tyrion killed him, and I can’t even talk about Shae. How do you feel about the new Tyrion and how does his transformation affect the tone of the show?

As much as Tyrion tries to shield himself with self-deprecating humour, wine and faux cynicism, the events of this season have battered his psyche. We see him start to drop the facade during the trial sequence, where he is framed for a murder he didn’t commit. We see it in the scene with Oberyn, when Tyrion learns how his sister tortured him even as an infant. And finally we see his reaction when Oberyn, his champion, dies horribly, and Tyrion hears his own father sentence him to death. He’s a good man, but he’s been pushed too far, and his decision to seek vengeance in the finale shows this is not the Tyrion Lannister we first met in the Winterstown brothel.

At this point, everyone has someone’s blood on their hands — Daenerys has grown a bit more ruthless, Arya loves to kill in a way that is a bit upsetting. Meanwhile, characters like Jaime Lannister and the Hound become more human. So what is the Game of Thrones definition of a hero?

The definition of a hero is the same in Game of Thrones as it is everywhere else; the problem is that heroes in GoT rarely survive for long. Ned Stark was a hero, so was his son Robb, so was Oberyn Martell. Courage, nobility and a refusal to compromise are admirable qualities — and generally fatal in Westeros. The characters who endure tend to be more adaptable, more willing to evolve to conditions in a merciless world.

Daenerys has shown a ruthless side ever since the moment she unflinchingly watched her brother’s skull melt. As a queen, she shows great compassion for the powerless and a willingness to destroy anyone who stands in her way. To some she’s a heroine; to others she’s a foreign tyrant with messianic delusions.

Arya’s childhood was ravaged by violence. Everyone she loved and trusted has been brutally murdered: her father; her mother; her brother; even Yoren, who rescued her from King’s Landing. She has decided she will not be a victim. Her nighttime lullaby is her own personal hit list. She doesn’t care about being a hero: She cares about surviving and avenging her family.

The closest thing we have to a classic hero is Jon Snow, who always tries to do the right thing and believes in the lessons Ned Stark taught him. His inherent nobility is both a strength and a weakness and gets him in trouble time and again.

How fun was it to put giants on mammoths in the penultimate episode? And did you think “take that, Peter Jackson!”?

All credit to the VFX department for bringing them to life. And to Peter Jackson for showing that a mesmerizing adaptation of a high fantasy classic was possible. Nobody would have green-lit Game of Thrones if not for the success of Mr. Jackson’s Rings trilogy.

I would think one of the biggest challenges you face, besides losing main characters at an alarming clip, is juggling all those storylines and giving everyone enough screen time. How do you keep it all going?

We’re Luddites, so we use index cards on corkboards. Each storyline (Castle Black, say, or Arya/Hound) gets its own colour. At our peak in Season 3 we were up to 13 different colours. One upside of losing main characters at an alarming clip is we no longer have to use taupe or mauve. Once we’ve mapped out each storyline we start putting cards on the board and argue over which scenes should be in which episode and in what order. We end up reordering quite a bit in post, when we’ve seen the directors’ cuts and realize certain transitions make more sense than others.

Who’s been the hardest character to let go of so far?

Ah, we’d be like grandparents trying to choose a favourite grandchild. And it’s hard to separate the characters from the actors. We miss them all.

Except Rose Leslie (the Wildling Ygritte), who is evil incarnate.

I have to ask: How did they make Oberyn’s head explode? And how many takes?

Those few gory seconds took a remarkable team effort: Barrie Gower, our prosthetics whiz, created a skull for the Mountain to crush. Our brilliant VFX team, led by Steve Kullback and Joe Bauer, worked on the illusion of the Mountain’s thumbs digging into Oberyn’s eye sockets, then partially reconstructed Oberyn’s face for the gruesome aftermath shot. Tim Kimmel and the sound team came up with that awful sound of the skull exploding. All this grisly gorgeousness was pieced together by ace editor Tim Porter, and directed by the incomparable Alex Graves.

I’ve been camping this week, and I have to admit my relationship to crows has changed significantly. Are there things about this story, or this experience, that have changed the way you look at or think about things?

No one invites us to weddings anymore. It all went exactly according to plan.

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